My church has been going nuts on the message of grace. It freaks me out every time I go. The head pastor keeps preaching things which repeat thoughts I’ve had, or things I’ve said, in the preceding day or week. It’s as if he has been bugging my house.

I thought I had been writing a lot about the concept of grace here, but it looks like most of it went to Facebook, so I’ll try to capture some of it.

Every good thing comes by revelation.

That’s a good place to start.

I tend to think of revelation as facts and ideas that come to me from the Holy Spirit, but that’s not the whole picture. Faith itself is a revelation.

Jesus told us that if we believed, we would receive. He said we could command things to happen, and if we did not doubt, they would occur. We are not limited to prayer. You can point at a tree and tell it to wither, if God is with you, and it will happen. Similarly, we have the power to bless.

For millennia, we have been teaching that belief is an effort. It’s something you have to do, in your own strength, in order to please God and get him to answer your prayers.

That’s so wrong it’s insane.

If you’ve ever prayed for something and tried to believe, you know how hard it is. You can keep it up for a certain amount of time, but eventually, you’ll fail. And your faith won’t be that strong to begin with. The only way to have strong, enduring faith is to have the Holy Spirit inside you, believing through you. “Grace” means things God does for you, without requiring you to earn them. People think they need faith to receive grace, but in reality, faith comes by grace. It’s a gift. Check 1 Corinthians 12:4.

Jude told us the way to get faith was to pray in tongues. Look it up. It’s a short book. We were given the key, right there, yet historically, we have tried to believe with our own minds.

Here’s a problem: Satan has “grace,” too, and he provides “faith.” So do unbelievers and doubters.

You are constantly surrounded by beings that put faith in you. Jesus called them birds in the parable of the sower. Spirits will give you faith that God is not real. They will give you faith that God does not love you, and that your prayers will not be answered. They will give you depression, which is faith that your life is going to get worse and worse. They will give you anxiety, which is faith that bad things are going to happen to you. They will give you discouragement, which is faith that you will fail.

You will believe these things in spite of what you see and know. In other words, you will walk by faith, not by sight! Unfortunately, it’s the wrong faith.

When I was 25, Jesus visited me. I was in a car, driving home from a drunken weekend, and suddenly I knew I was going to die that day. It was not an opinion. I KNEW it. And I also knew I had no reason to believe it. I now know this is what people call an “anxiety attack.” It was completely irrational, and I knew it, but I couldn’t do anything about it.

I prayed, and Jesus got in the car. I did not see him, but he was in the middle of the front seat. Love, peace, and reassurance radiated from him. The faith that I was going to die was gone, just as darkness is gone when you turn a light on. I felt wonderful.

Today I understand what happened. Spirits gave me negative faith, and another spirit–Jesus–came and gave me positive faith, which destroyed its opposite.

This type of assault takes place in your life every day. If you’re depressed, you believe irrational garbage injected into your mind by other beings. Some may come from people, and some may come from spirits, and you will even do it to yourself, because you’ll develop the habit. That’s “iniquity.” In any case, you already have faith, but it may be the wrong faith, from the wrong source.

Satan gives you this “faith” by “grace.” In other words, he doesn’t ask you to earn it. He seeks you out, and he drops it on you, free of charge. That’s unquestionably true.

If that’s true, then why don’t we realize that God does the same thing, in reverse? God seeks us out, and he gives us true faith. He tells us he loves us. He tells us he has saved us from hell. And if we build ourselves up with tongues, he will also tell us he gives us miracles, so convincingly that Satan’s puny false faith can’t stop it.

We may not realize it, but we think Satan is stronger and more “generous” than God. That isn’t true. Satan is pushier, but he is weak.

With all that said, here’s a major problem that prevents your faith, supernatural or otherwise, from working: you condemn yourself. In your heart, you feel that you don’t deserve what you ask for, and therefore you don’t believe, so you don’t receive.

A few weeks back, I started feeling that I had to forgive myself during prayer. I resisted, because it sounded New-Agey. I am not Jesus. I can’t die for anyone’s sins. And it would be very wrong for me to deny the evil I’ve done, or to forget it. I was afraid I was having a Joel Osteen moment, denying guilt just for the sake of feeling good.

I went with it, though, and it brought me a big improvement in answered prayer. I said I forgave myself, and that I would not curse what God had blessed. I felt increased faith rushing through me. Things got better.

My church is holding a series of classes on the Holy Spirit, and they’re wonderful. Three or four weeks back, we were talking about the necessity of forgiveness, and I asked the instructor about forgiving ourselves. He was against it. I don’t think he understood what I meant. English is his second language.

After that, our pastor taught about grace on Sundays, and essentially, he said what I had said. Self-condemnation blocks grace. If you think you have to earn answers to prayer, you will not receive them, because you know perfectly well you can’t earn them. You deserve death and damnation, like everyone else. Only Jesus deserved the authority to receive answers to prayer.

The faith that rushed through me came through the same opening as the revelation I receive when I pray in tongues. That may sound weird, but if you’ve been there, you know what I mean. It’s as if there is a spring inside you, and all good things come from it. When God explains things to me, it’s revelation. But it’s also revelation when I have faith. It’s the Holy Spirit, saying, “YES.”

You should learn a few things from this. First, if you do something sinful, you are not going to hell for it, unless you’ve given up on God and his righteousness. And it will not prevent your prayers from being answered. You can kick your dog, and then a few minutes later, you can repent and pray, and God will hear you and answer. You should not think it’s okay to do bad things, but they will not keep God away from you, if you repent, forgive, and have faith.

Second: you need to pray in tongues. We are soil. The name “Adam” comes from the word for “dirt.” The word of God is seed, as Jesus said. Prayer in tongues is water, as Paul and Jesus said. If you have a seed, and you have dirt, you need water. It’s that simple. The kingdom of heaven will not grow inside you without water. You have to have revelation by grace, including faith.

Third, forgive EVERYONE when you pray, except for fallen angels and demons. Forgive yourself, expressly. And forgive out loud, so all your supernatural enemies hear it. They can’t read minds. Let them know they don’t have title to you.

This stuff has improved things greatly for me, and I know it will work for you. It’s all scriptural. It is the most hated message there is, because it’s so powerful and right. Satan still occupies this world, even though he lost the deed at Calvary, and he is enraged by tools that push him off his stolen throne. Religious people–Jews and Christians–will be furious at you for promoting this doctrine. But it still works, because it came from God.

Give it a shot. See if you can be the fertile ground that produced a hundredfold return. Water your seed every day.

One Response to “Responsible Gardening”

thanks for this Steve…very powerful, insightful and helpful! We’ve been walking thru a fire for about 2 years now and praying in the Spirit is not a luxury; it’s necessary. Keep writing (I know you will)…it blesses people you won’t know about ’til later on.